Dell has announced its plans to ditch Research in Motion's platform and move …

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Dell is shifting 25,000 of its employees, or one-quarter of its work force, from Research in Motion's BlackBerry to its own Windows Phone 7-powered Venue Pro. The company is still in discussions with T-Mobile USA, the carrier for the Venue Pro, for buying voice and data in bulk.

"Clearly in this decision we are competing with RIM, because we're kicking them out," Dell's chief financial officer, Brian Gladden, told The Wall Street Journal. Dell reportedly hasn't told RIM executives about the company's plans yet; they're expected to find out from the public media. "We actually had a conversation last night around creating a site on eBay where we can actually sell these BlackBerry devices [that employees return]."

The company says that the switch will save money (as it will no longer need to pay for RIM's services), and is part of a larger effort for the PC maker to convince its business customers to switch to the company's smartphones. In the future, Dell will also offer employees phones powered by Google's Android, which some of the company's devices already use.

Dell has often talked about using handheld devices as a gateway to sell and promote a broader suite of services, such as setting up networks and managing assets. Services offer higher margins than devices, which Dell says continue to get cheaper and cheaper, and so the company is perfectly happy with selling other manufacturers' devices as long as it is part of a larger, more lucrative wireless package.

The overall strategy shift suggests Dell is getting serious about mobile phones. That's great news for Microsoft, which is counting on Dell to be one of its biggest allies. Earlier this year, Microsoft declared it would give every single one of its 89,000 employees a Windows Phone device. The software giant also later announced they would be allowed to retain the ownership and profit of apps they develop for the platform.